By Business & Finance 
AI is the next technological revolution but is the Financial Services industry lagging behind – and missing out?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the world’s biggest and most exciting technologies set to revolutionise every industry: the finance sector will benefit greatly from this surge. Not only will it allow businesses to become quicker and less expensive to operate, AI will also create more new opportunities and add an additional estimated €11.6 trillion to global economic activity by 2030.
Despite of the rise of AI, Digital Realty’s latest research has shown that over a quarter (27%) of IT decision makers in Ireland’s largest financial services companies are ill prepared to implement the technology into their business. This is not just a trend seen in Ireland but also in the likes of the UK (36%), Germany (18%), and The Netherlands (23%).
Whilst several basic processes in the financial services industry – fraud detection and stock trading – are made possible by simpler machine learning implementations, there is still a plethora of ways financial institutions can – and should – adopt AI into their more complex processes like payment facilitation, deep-dive behaviour analysis, and customer interaction.
New demands and legacy infrastructure
To seize the new technological opportunities that arise from AI, and to ensure that they benefit from these opportunities, companies will need to meet new processing and interconnectivity demands.
Legacy infrastructure is one of the greatest challenges that companies in the financial services sector face, with 22% of IT decision makers in Ireland stating that it is one of the biggest restraints being faced to prepare for the industry’s newest technologies.
As businesses and their tech requirements grow, upgrading legacy systems becomes more expensive to sustain. Whilst some may argue that there is a financial cost attached to outsourcing your infrastructure, the benefits of doing so far outweigh the financial burden of maintaining outdated systems.
This challenge is leading many companies to look to cloud and data centre partners for the purpose-built infrastructure, rapid low-cost interconnection, high levels of security and simple management of these complex data environments that can underpin their digital ambitions.
Data centre providers offer the critical foundations that help deal with the exponential technical growth facing comapnies. They deliver cost-efficient, purpose built, secure and maintained data infrastructure. To ensure that you move to the cloud without the financial cost of implementing it in-house, greater simplicity and the same level of security.
Key decision makers need to put infrastructure investment high on their agenda as the future is becoming increasingly data-led, so whilst there is an initial financial investment, financial services firms can expect to see a healthy return on this in the long-term.
